I have such an incredibly hard time believing any, "this is what i had to do for the role" type interviews. The more extreme they make it seem, the bigger the headline. Every time there's a semi muscular guy in a movie, "i had to gain 30lbs of muscle...i was ONLY eating protein." Clueless comments like that just show they playing into the headlines. I love the show Reacher and i remember for both seasons the main actor would give some, "i had to gain 30lbs of pure muscle." Um, no.
For the Rock, during BIG Rock times, i had guessed he kept himself at a decently lean 250-260ish year round. So to play Mark Kerr who was actually 250, the Rock had to get to 290? Uh, no. No fuck way. The Rock just stayed himself for that role. But i get it, he's slimmed down now and he probably is 30lbs away from that currently. Im assuming he's in the 230s right now.
Btw, saw The Smashing Machine last night. I thought it was very good and was impressed with his performance.